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Local reaction: Boy Scouts of America votes to allow gay Scouts

By BRANDIE KESSLER Daily Record/Sunday News

Updated:
05/24/2013 08:40:17 AM EDT

For Jesse Gantt, the Boy Scouts of America's vote Thursday to lift a long-standing ban on gay Scouts was bittersweet.

As the founder and CEO of The Foundation for Hope, which locally aims to raise awareness about bullying, depression and suicide, Gantt said he was "very glad and proud of the Boy Scouts of America for taking the right step in including all Americans in the organization."

As a former Scout, "pushed out" of the organization for being gay when he was close to earning his Eagle Scout, Gantt said he was sad for his younger self who missed out on earning his Eagle Scout, which he worked much of his life for.

"At the end of the day, we can't change the past, but we can change the future," Gantt said.

Thursday's vote is a step in that direction, he said.

In a press release issued after the vote was announced, Ronald M. Gardner Jr.

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, Scout executive and CEO of the New Birth of Freedom Council, which serves more than 11,000 Scouts in York, Adams, Cumberland, Dauphin, Franklin and Perry counties, said the focus remains "to deliver the nation's foremost youth program of character development and values-based leadership training."

Gardner went on to say he hopes the policy update will allow all youth who want to be in Scouting to do so.

"Going forward, we will work to stay focused on that which unites us," Gardner wrote.

Robert Woods, executive director of the United Way of York County, called Thursday's vote a partial victory.

"I was hoping to lift the ban over the whole issue of discrimination based on sexual orientation," he said, referencing the ban on homosexual Scout leaders that remains in place. "What do you tell a boy who goes through the Boy Scouts organization and gets his Eagle Scout, and then is told he can't be a troop leader? Why just go halfway through all this?"

Woods said that the United Way of York County, which provided "a couple hundred thousand dollars" in funding to local Boy Scouts over the past year, planned to cut off funding if the ban wasn't lifted.

Woods said the organization recently adopted new language which will prevent it from donating to organizations that discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. The new language will go into effect when the current agreement between the United Way and the Boy Scouts expires on July 1, 2016.

Woods said it's not clear whether not lifting the ban on gay Scout leaders will preclude the Boy Scouts from receiving funding from the United Way. That will be decided by the United Way's board, he said.

Rev. Ken Gibson, of Pleasant View Brethren in Christ in Red Lion, said he opposed lifting the ban.

"I think where we're at is that we agree with the ban because if you lift this, then the next one is to let (gay Scout) leaders in," Gibson said.

He explained that the Boy Scouts take an oath to be "obedient, reverent and morally pure. We feel this is an immoral act ... that it's an immoral sexual perversion."

'This is the easy part'

The Boy Scouts of America announced Thursday that the 1,400 voting members of its national council reached the decision to remove the restriction on gay Scouts after "the most comprehensive listening exercise" in the organization's history.

The conversation prior to the vote lasted months.

But Jesse Gantt, founder and CEO of The Foundation For Hope, who said he was pushed out of the Boy Scouts prior to earning his Eagle Scout because of his sexual orientation, said the vote is only the beginning of the process.

"As we know, whenever bans get lifted or laws get changed, this is the easy part," Gantt said. "Now the hard work actually begins. It's actually implementing it into different troops, making sure openly gay troop members aren't being discriminated against" that will be the difficult work.